FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



287 



pretty evenly distributed throughout the year, 

 and is quite excessive (one hundred and sev- 

 enty-seven inches). It is only in January and 

 February that a comparatively dry period 

 can be expected. The northeast trades blow 

 from December to April, becoming rather 

 easterly or southeasterly from March to No- 

 vember. Calms or violent southwesterly 

 storms occur chiefly between August and No- 

 vember. There being no springs, a supply of 

 water is collected in tanks or cisterns. The 

 useful plants include the cocoanut palm, bread- 

 fruit tree, and Pandamts odoratksimus, the sap 

 of which last is rich in sugar. The cultivation 

 of plantains has much increased of late, be- 

 sides which several kinds of arums, the South 

 Sea arrowroot {Tacca pinnatifida\ and a man- 

 grove which supplies a black dye are grown. 

 Guavas, figs, citrons, and anonas thrive well, 

 but tea, coffee, cacao, etc., can not be grown 



at all. The Micronesian population amounts 

 to from twelve thousand to thirteen thou- 

 sand. The population belongs to four sharply 

 defined classes. The great mass consists of 

 the common people {Kayur) ; the next higher 

 class is that of the Leatakketak, compar- 

 able to village magisti'ates, who see that the 

 orders of the chiefs are carried out. Neither 

 of these classes own land, but they are 

 allowed to grow as much produce or catch 

 as much fish as is necessary for their sus- 

 tenance. The ordinary chiefs {Burak) rank 

 above both these classes, and they often pos- 

 sess larger holdings than the head chiefs 

 {Iroj). All the members of these four 

 classes acquire their rank through the 

 mother only. The race seems to be deterio- 

 rating physically, owing to the prevalence of 

 specific disease, with which about fifty per 

 cent of the inhabitants are afflicted," 



MINOR PAEAGRAPHS. 



Anianus Jedlik died on the 12th of last 

 December, at the cloister of the Benedictine 

 order, in Gyor. He belonged to the old or- 

 der of natural philosophers (he was born in 

 1800) who lacked that important portion of 

 the latter-day physicists equipment, a knowl- 

 edge of higher mathematics. Some of his 

 more important treatises were under the fol- 

 lowing titles : The Deflection of Beams 

 (1845); The Application of the Electro-mag- 

 net in Electro-dynamic Rotations (1856) ; A 

 Modification of Grove and Bunsen's Battery 

 (1857); The Magneto-motor (1857); Concat- 

 enation of Leyden Jars (1863); Electro- 

 magnetic Undulation Machine (1868). 



M. Abel Hovelacque, one of the most 

 industrious and successful of the younger 

 French students of anthropology, died in 

 Paris, on the 22d of February, aged fifty-two 

 years. His effective scientific career began 

 in 1867, when, at the age of twenty-three 

 years, he founded, with Chav6e, the Revue 

 linguistique, the first journal in France spe- 

 cially devoted to linguistics ; joined the An- 

 thropological Society, and began the publica- 

 tion of articles in various periodicals. These 

 articles, largely relating to linguistic and 

 cranial investigations, were followed by books 

 on Our Ancestor ; The Beginnings of Man- 

 kind ; a Grammar of the Zend Language ; an 



Elementary Linguistics ; Languages, Races, 

 and Nationalities ; Observations on Herodo- 

 tus and the Persians ; The South Slavs ; 

 Linguistics ; The Avesta, Zoroaster, and 

 Mazdeism ; and a lecture on the Evolution of 

 Languages. On the foundation, by Broca, of 

 the Ecole d' Anthropologic, in 1876, Hove-, 

 lacque was made Professor of Linguistic 

 Ethnology. In 1890 he was made president 

 of the school and chief director of the Revue 

 mensuelle de Vj^cole d^ Anthropologie. He 

 has also taken part with other anthropolo- 

 gists, whom M. Andr6 Lefevre speaks of col- 

 lectively as a group, in other important en- 

 terprises and publications in anthropology. 



La Revue Scientifique of December 14th 

 contains an interesting anthropological note. 

 It had been noticed that the wounds made 

 by the arrows of the natives of New Heb- 

 rides were quite regularly followed by teta- 

 nus, and that the surrounding inhabitants 

 were more afraid of these arrows than of 

 a rifle bullet. A commission at Melbourne 

 experimented on some animals, with these 

 arrow points, in order to discover their poi- 

 son, but obtained no results. So far as the 

 animals were concerned, the arrows were 

 not poisoned. A somewhat similar commis- 

 sion in 1883, authorized by the Governor of 

 New Caledonia, gave no better results. In 



